Christin's Words from Sunshine Hill

If it is to be music

you must be present to it, must offer to it

a profound self-remembering.

-from Altar Music

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Beginning Without End

My mind is all a twirl, flitting, sparking, wanting not to rest on just one thing. Yet, wanting to delve, wanting to plumb the living depths of all the thoughts, the images, the memories, the dreams that every moment offers. Where is my discipline? I cannot focus anymore on any one thing. A winter robin lands on the oak branch. Where did you fly from? I want to ask. I want the time to ask. What thermals did you ride? How does the cold air hold you? Where will you go? How do you sustain yourself? But the bird is too fast for all these wonders. She has flown off before I've had the time.

Where does the time go? Will there ever be enough of it? There never will be, will there? The suspicion rises now that time might well be in the breath we use to ask the question, but cannot yield an answer that will satisfy. It flows too fast. Every book I've ever devoted myself to writing is a question hoping for an answer. But its ending always seems to be an opening out of its own limited "time" into some further wonderment, new world, new time, new question that seeks answering.

These last few days of the calendar year lines from Psalm 26 have been on my mind:

"Of you my heart has spoken:
'Seek God's face'.
It is your face oh Holy One that I seek;
Hide not your face."

And out from those words comes the realization here is the question without end, the answer that never will be fathomed, the reality behind all appearance, the eternity in every moment, the heart's longing that will not be satisfied, the Face behind all faces, the allure that draws us, the never ending mystery, the Beginning that breaks forth from every Ending.

1 comment:

I just finished Altar Music and it was wonderful and the characters so alive. Now I have ordered Far & Near Journals.......sounds good also. You are a wonderful writer and also a deeply spiritual writer. I feel blessed......Peace to you, JoAnn

The Root of Beauty

THE EDGE OF TENDERNESS

THE BLUE SHAWL

The FarNear Journals

GYPSY BONES

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About Me

I'm a writer and observer of beauty in nature and people, a singer of praise and a dreamer who stares into both light and darkness hoping to see someday the Face of God.
My journey has led from the northern lakes, to a convent on the prairie, to lifelong education including a doctorate in ministry, to a vocation of midwifery of souls, to this place, Casa Chiara, where the light shines and John Sack and I join our lives, care for nature, pray and contemplate, study and write.
Published Works:
THE ROOT OF BEAUTY: A SPIRITUAL MEMOIR, THE EDGE OF TENDERNESS: A MEMOIR, THE BLUE SHAWL,THE FARNEAR JOURNALS, GYPSY BONES,
ALTAR MUSIC,
CIRCLE OF MYSTERIES,
WOMANCHRIST,
BLESSINGS,
FINDING STONE,
CARING COMMUNITY,
A CRY IN THE DESERT.
Los Angeles Times Best Novel of 2000 for ALTAR MUSIC.
Recipient of four prizes/commendations for CIRCLE OF MYSTERIES.